


Old Time's Sake

by bonie (spenceur)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: :), Inspired by Music, LOOSELY ana and jesse, M/M, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Post-Omnic Crisis, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, They're mentioned - Freeform, and they have an important part to play, i KNOW its a one-shot it can't be slow-burn but it's part of a slow-burn mafia???ish AU fic, idk what else to tag this as though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21985972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spenceur/pseuds/bonie
Summary: Two men walk into a bar.It really hurt.Gabriel is the bad guy now.  Jack, though no longer Strike Commander Morrison, is still trying to do the right thing, take down the bad guys and save as many lives as he can, even though the new public enemy number one is the Reaper in Gabriel Reyes.  Even so, his soft spot for what once maybe might have could've been leads him to the same bar every Sunday night, a small oasis in the everyday reality that one day, one of them is going to come out of this dead.  For now, they sit, they drink, they torment each other, and for now, maybe for one night only, they dance.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Kudos: 14





	Old Time's Sake

**Author's Note:**

> Excerpt from a crime boss/whatever AU that I literally came up w/ the idea for by listening to Roy Orbinson's "Crying" on repeat for four days. Literally. That's the song at the end, if you hadn't guessed. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNdBLBleO90

It wasn’t a seedy bar by any means. It was classy, uptown, and one of Gabriel’s favorites, if not number one. He sat, whiskey glass in hand, at their usual table in the far corner, where they could see everything. He could count every patron in the bar, if he wanted to, he could clearly see the two neon “EXIT” signs, and even into most of the kitchen, glancing at it every time the double-doors swung open, servers and bussers going in and out all night.

Sunday, seven o’clock, every week, he was here. So regularly, in fact, that the staff had made a tasteful plaque that read “RESERVED” his men had spotted while staking the place out a few hours ahead months ago. He’d seen servers get in arguments about whose table they’d be before, despite the fact that he always left a fair tip in the pitcher on the bar he knew all the staff split in one way or another at the end of the night. 

Sunday, five past seven, and his comrade, his love, his enemy was officially late, for the first time in a very long time. Far from Gabriel to be concerned, but it was an odd feeling. These meetings were the worst-kept secret in the entire state of California, scandalous and treacherous as they were, but that fucking cop, soldier, boyscout was rarely late, and had never stood him up. He wasn’t worried, just surprised. So he told himself, at least. 

Sunday, twelve past seven, and the front door finally swung open, a quiet jingle that should have been inaudible from his position alerting Gabriel to the entrance of Jack Morrison himself, cheeks flushed pink and water droplets settled in his blond hair. The hostess politely took his umbrella and coat, nodding unnecessarily towards the table where Gabriel sat. The blond weaved through tables, nodding at the bartender as they met eyes, and finally sat across from his target, his back turned against the entire bar. After all this time, Reyes still thought it was a stupid thing to do.

“I apologize for being late,” he started as he shuffled his chair forward.

“I wasn’t going to mention it,” came Gabriel’s response. His chin was resting in his palm, and his elbow was resting on the table. He excused himself of his lack of manners only because there was no food at the table. “A bit overdressed there, Jack. Did you just get here from a hot date? I’m flattered you left such a date for little ol’ me. You shouldn’t have.” 

Normally, this would have lead a blush to Jack’s cheeks, the tips of his ears turning pink and driving him to wave his fingers through his hair. Apparently, this was not a normal date. Morrison’s face darkened considerably, a scowl forming as he informed Reyes that he had been trying to escape “that stupid pageantry party” up to the very moment he was supposed to already be at bar.

“Oh? A party? I know I didn’t miss your birthday. Have you been sucking up to government officials all night again, Jack?” As he said this, he took note of how his words seemed to slur just the slightest amount, eyes taking far longer to blink than they should have.

He knew his facetious flirting wasn’t going to outright infuriate the man, not like it had in the beginning, far before these meetings began to take place, but he was never one to shy away from the challenge of getting a reaction from Jack Morrison, the man loved by all for his good behavior and hero complex.

“You know I’m not going to talk about work with you, Gabriel. Jesus, speaking of, you look exhausted, and -- is that a black eye? What kind of trouble have  _ you _ been making this week?”

Gabriel’s arm slid from the table, and he forced his eyes to stay open as he smiled lazily at the man in front of him. “Do your government officials know what you do at your after parties? Slicking up to them just so you can go to dinner with their biggest enemy, asking about his well-being?” 

Jack opened his mouth to retort just as the cocktail waitress brought him his usual drink, a healthy pour of Cabernet, not quite top shelf, but not inexpensive either. He never let Gabriel pay for his meal or drinks, but that didn’t mean he was going to drink sub-par wine, either.

“Thank you, Honey. You’re always our best gal,” he charmed at the waitress as she set it down.”

“Oh, don’t do that to me. You know I’m a sucker for brooding handsome men. Your man here doesn’t tip as well when I wait too long to bring you your cab. Y’all eatin’ tonight, or should I just keep an eye out for the drinks?”

Jack took a quick glance at Reyes, half asleep across the table, though he did hear a soft chuckle from the man when Honey mentioned her tips. It was new information to Jack, if true. 

“I think you’d better bring us some carbs, Honey. He can’t take me home if he dies from exhaustion at the dinner table.”

“Can’t pay my rent, either. I’ll be right back, then. Don’t let him die while I’m gone.”

She turned and left towards the kitchen, sparing a last glance to the darker man who had hardly spoken a word to her ever, let alone tonight, still wondering if she’d ever butter him up enough to get him to hold a conversation with her in her lifetime.

“Is that true?”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow at the question. “Is what true?”

“Do you really skimp out on tips if they take too long with your drink?”

Gabriel shook his head, almost smiling, though it could have just as easily been a smirk. “No, I assure you I tip very generously. Don’t worry your pretty little head. As for the eye, well, what can I say. Your lieutenant just packs a harder punch than I’d expected, and definitely isn’t opposed to a few sucker punches.”

Jack frowned. Ana hadn’t told him she’d come to a fight with Gabriel Reyes, though he’d never tell the other man that. Gabriel knew too many of his weaknesses as it is. He had no intention of letting him think of his second’s lack of communication as another.

He sipped his wine, watching as Reyes rubbed his thumb on the side of his glass, his drink, presumably untouched, for the most part, swirling around, teasing a golden reflection across the side of Gabriel’s face as his lips spread into a wicked smile. Reyes found it too easy to read Morrison sometimes, it was almost pitiful.

“She didn’t tell you? It  _ is _ quite a funny story, if you’d like to hear it, even if it’s from me, and not your most trusted confidant.”

Jack’s frown only deepened. He could never hide his thoughts from broadcasting on his face, in his body language. Not when it came to Gabriel. 

“Oh, come  _ on _ , Morrison. You wanted to know what kind of trouble I’ve been up to this week.”

Morrison sighed in resignation, motioning for his companion to continue, to regale him with the details as to why his lieutenant had been in proximity to the terrifying man in front of him, and to maybe shed some clue as to why she’d failed to share the story with him herself. 

“I swear, for once I was minding my own business.” His opener forced a disbelieving snort from Jack. “But I  _ was _ , I promise you, just running some errands before I had to head back to some late-night work last night, coming out of the tailor’s and she was right outside, waiting for me.”

“Are you sure?”

“That she was waiting for me, with intent to confront me? Definitely. She was standing not two feet from the door, arms crossed and waiting. I’m sure if she could have talked herself into it, she’d have waited for me inside. At any rate, I was very polite upon seeing her. ‘Miss Amari,’ I said. ‘It’s always a privilege to see you in person,’ I told her. Before I even had a chance to reach out for a handshake, she’d punched me square in the jaw, and again with the eye. Didn’t even wait another second before trying to bury her boot in my stomach, threatening me with talk about some boy I’d apparently been responsible for the maiming of. Something about a good kid with half an arm.”

“McCree,” Jack muttered. He knew the story. The up-and-comer detective fresh out of the beat, who’d hunted Morrison down personally to ask to help nail Reyes. He’d been wary at first, but the kid had proved himself in an unfortunate shoot-out with Reyes’ men and had torn Ana away from a very targeted bullet not a week later, trailing them both to ask Jack to rethink his decision to reject his transfer. When Jack had asked him why he was so intent on getting Reyes, he’d told him the story about how Reyes had personally been responsible for the damage to his arm that had led to amputation, not because the kid owed him money or because he’d gotten too involved in anything, no. He’d done it to give a message to the kid’s uncle for spending Reyes’ money gambling, despite having paid it back. 

“What was that?”

Jack shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Regardless, you really should hold a tighter leash on your subordinates. My manners will only be pushed so far before my patience is worn thin by unprovoked violence. Next time, you might end up shopping for a new right hand.”

Jack pretended not to notice the obvious threat in Gabriel’s friendly “advice.”

“I’ll take that into consideration, thank you.”

“Ah, ah, ah, Jack. That kind of story costs far more than a dismissive ‘thank you,’ don’t you think?” Morrison didn’t respond, choosing instead to give him a look that Reyes interpreted as a cautious, confused,  _ what did you have in mind? _ After all, in all of their meetings, Reyes had never made any serious attempts to get any information about Jack’s end of the job, though he hadn’t always been polite enough to return the favor.

“Dance with me, Jack.”

The sudden invitation startled him back to full alertness. “What?”

“I love this song. Dance with me.”

Jack turned to look at the makeshift stage at the back of the room, where a woman and her band were playing one of their more upbeat numbers. They were always there, at least on the weekends. If not them, then somebody. The upper-class bars prided themselves on live music nowadays, Jack rarely even noticed the players anymore.

He was focusing so hard on trying to remember why the notes sounded familiar he didn’t notice Reyes already standing as he reached a calloused hand in front of his face, an open invitation, a blatant trap, a nostalgia trip. 

“What would your abuela think, threatening a man and then asking him to dance not ten minutes later, Gabriel? She always did worry about your manners.”

The glint in Gabriel’s eyes would have gone unnoticed by someone less familiar, someone paid less to know this man inside and out, but Jack saw it. Reyes’ family was practically unknown, but he still told stories about them, in his more vulnerable moments back in the day. It may have been a low blow, but he’d caught Jack by surprise by his proposal, and the mirror in Gabriel’s earlier comment had not gone unnoticed. 

Rather than actual physical violence, Reyes responded by hauling Jack out of his chair, unwillingly, though not entirely by force. Diplomacy was practically Jack’s middle name, at this point, and causing a scene inside the only meeting place he could ever convince Gabriel to frequent was not a good idea. 

Gabriel led him to the center of the bar, where there was a small circle where there had never been tables, by practically swinging them to the center. It was clearly meant for dancing, should anyone actually choose to embarrass themselves so publicly, though Jack couldn’t recall a single night where’d he’d ever actually seen anyone doing so.

The song was not so upbeat so as to require any sort of complicated dance revolving around intricate footwork, but not so slow that anything other than a waltz would seem out of place. Gabriel led them into a slow foxtrot, keeping them, for the most part, centered in the ring as a few patrons began to look their way, curious of the two who would take the leap and actually make use of the space. Doing a quick once-over of the room for potential threats, Jack even noticed the host, bartender, and dear Honey pause in what they were doing to observe the two men as Gabriel closed his eyes, his feet moving flawlessly to the rhythm of the music. 

Jack was not a poor dancer by far, but Gabriel’s timekeeping had always been astonishingly accurate. The thought briefly made him wonder if Reyes still woke up at 4:30 on the dot like he had so diligently back in their army days, even when the power had gone out or they hadn’t had access to any electricity with which to set an alarm, but the thought passed as he felt himself be led into a soft dip, and they continued. 

Gabriel’s grip on his partner was tight, assertive, and teetering towards threatening despite his light steps to the beat as though they were simply two associates loosened up just a bit too much after a few drinks. That’s where he excelled the most: subtle threats between fine lines or hidden in his body language where he could avoid trouble and still make his thoughts clear, and Jack thrived when his most important job was to read people.

Right now, Reyes was relaying to him several messages at once.  _ Keep your lieutenant under control  _ was only the icing on this multi-layered cake.  _ I dare you to try that stunt about my family again _ lay just under it, as brooding and menacing as the man himself. Morrison had touched a deeper nerve than he’d initially thought, with that one. 

“I got it!” he exclaimed, half-laughing. “The song. This is the one that was playing when you congratulated me on the promotion. You said you  _ hated _ it.”

Gabriel shrugged, his lazy smile fading into complete nonchalance. “I did. They’d played it six times that night, and Oxton had been singing or humming it the whole month prior. Didn’t matter how many times you threatened to cut out her tongue, you couldn’t keep the tune off her lips.”

“Well, maybe if you’d ever made good on any of your threats, she might have been more inclined to believe you’d actually do it.”

At that, and with the impeccable timing of the changing song, Gabriel dipped his partner low, lips to his ear as his arm supported the man under him with a firm arm. 

His voice could have beat a wolf into submission with all the malevolence dripping from it. His low timbre sent a chill down Morrison’s spine for the first time in a very long time as he said, “Have you known me to not make good on my threats, Morrison, where it  _ really _ counts?” 

Before he could respond, Jack felt himself being pulled back up and into his dance partner, noticing that they’d slipped into a dance that was more swing, his Charleston filled with considerably less enthusiasm and practiced athleticism as Gabriel’s. The question had set him so off-guard that he found himself needing to focus to keep up with Gabriel’s steps for the first time since he’d drug him out to the floor. It was an oddly fitting metaphor. He and Gabriel were so alike, he was so used to them being two sides of the same coin for so long that he’d taken their synchronicity for granted and now found himself unable to turn his attention anywhere else, lest he miss a step and end up tripping over his own mistakes and land on the floor.    


“I suppose I  _ shouldn’t  _ take your threats so lightly. After all, you followed through when you threatened to leave me behind. I questioned your resolve then, and I drew the short end of the stick for the fallout of that one.”

“ _ You _ drew the short end of the stick, huh?”

“Of course. You faded back into the long-forgotten attics of everybody’s attention, and I was left at the wheel on the front end of a head-on collision.”

“That’s really how you see it? Even after all this time?”

Jack’s face twisted into an uncomfortable frown as he pondered not only the question itself, but the motive behind it. 

“You still don’t get it, do you, Jack? Christ. I never left you behind. They were going to force me out either way. My options were a court martial and swift execution, leaving before they found enough or found witnesses to make it justifiable, or stay and hope I ended up KIA before it ever got that far. I tried to convince you to leave with me because I knew, I  _ knew _ they’d end up leaving you with the same options if things kept going the way they had. You might not have seen it, but everyone else did. They were setting us up to take the fall when the world inevitably decided that they didn’t need us, that the ends no longer justified the means. You were never going to come quietly. Threatening to leave without you was the last way to try and drill that into that thick fucking skull of yours.” 

At some point during his tangent, their threatening, “we don’t want to cause a scene, do we?” dance had transformed as another, slower song had begun to play. They were swaying lazily to the music, the secret yearning to lean their head on the other’s shoulder left a familiar tension between the two, both knowing the possibility was so close, only inches away, driven half a world away, a rift separated by war, personal betrayals, and decades of grudges. 

“Ah, I know this one,” Gabriel said with a sigh. “This was old before we were even born. I’m surprised they know it, to be honest.”

Jack’s focus snapped to the band unwittingly, years of training leading him to turn his attention when a teammate picked up on something. 

_ I was all right _

_ For a while _

_ I could smile for awhile _

“I can’t say I know it,” he replied. He felt out of breath, suffocated by the new insight on Gabriel’s motivations all those years ago, trapped by how close the other man’s heart was, feeling it beat against his own.

_ But I saw you last night _

_ You held my hand so tight _

_ As you stopped to say, “Hello” _

“That’s not surprising,” Reyes murmured, his eyes shutting slowly yet again as he felt the melody weave its way into his veins. “You always were more of a popstar than you let on.”

His body felt warm, too warm, as he listened to Jack’s breathing falter, considerably more shallow than it had been during the songs before. Typical Jack, not to react under pressure, to keep his cool through threats and arguments, yet buckle and fall apart under any shred of intimacy. 

_ Oh, you wished me well _

_ You couldn’t tell _

_ That I’d been crying over you _

“We could have had this, Gabriel. We could have made it. We aren’t the type of men to lose our senses in a fight. We bear down, we find solutions. We fight  _ back _ . What was different? What did we do wrong?”

_ When you said, “So long” _

_ Left me standing all alone _

_ Alone and crying, crying _

Gabriel snorted softly, as though Jack had insulted his intelligence, bruised his ego. “We were never going to have this, Morrison. In the war, we couldn’t get invested, in case the other didn’t make it out alive. We couldn’t have it after what they turned us into, after who we lost to ensure we kept winning. Not after they planted all those little seeds of resentment, and we both know chopping down that forest now could never,  _ will _ never be a possibility.”

_ It’s hard to understand _

_ But the touch of your hand _

_ Can start me crying _

“We really made a mess of things, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel breathed. “I suppose we did.”

“And, tomorrow, we’ll be right back to trying to kill each other.”

“ _ You’ll _ be trying. I’ve always won, in the long run.”

_ I thought that I was over you _

_ But it’s true, so true _

_ I love you even more than I did before _

_ But, darling, what can I do? _

“And what does that cost you? What’s the price of losing the battle, and always winning the war?”

Gabriel didn’t respond, only pulling Jack closer and breathing in deep.

_ For you don’t love me _

_ And I’ll always be crying over you _

_ Crying over you _

“Let’s just enjoy this truce, Jackie. Just one night, we can pretend that we could have ever truly loved each other, been there for each other. We were always good at lying to ourselves about what was going on around us while the world fell apart, can’t we do it one last time, tonight, for old time’s sake?”

It was rarely Jack who took a leap. He played it safe, he learned the rules, he toed the line, but tonight, it was him that finally gave in, leaning his head onto Gabriel’s shoulder, his breath hot on his neck. He closed his eyes, not in contentment, exactly, but something like it.

_ Yes, now you’re gone _

_ And from this moment on _

_ I’ll be crying, crying _

_ Over you _

He was used to that, after all. Not happy, but something close to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this isn't a one-shot so much as an excerpt, but I really wanted to write this particular scene in a way that it could be standalone. It's part of a slow-burn, very complicated Mafia/Crime Boss AU where, after Blackwatch started to go under with Overwatch falling soon after, Reyes puts his talent elsewhere for much the same reasons and with the same justification as he had in Blackwatch, i.e. "someone has to do the dirty work re: keeping people safe" and "the ends justify the means," while Jack is the man in charge of taking him down, meeting up with Gabriel in secret under the guise of trying to pick up loose information from Gabriel through pleasant conversation and diplomacy since he can't attack him outright. McCree's one of Jack's underlings who reports back to and only follows Gabriel. 
> 
> okaythanksforreading sorryforinfodumping pleasesaynicethingsinthecomments 
> 
> or dont criticism is nice, too.


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